"We stayed composed at the end": UMHB women's basketball knocks off No. 18 Hardin-Simmons in pivotal ASC win

ABILENE, Texas — It is the kind of matchup that is circled on the schedule at the beginning of every year.

For as much as things have changed within the American Southwest Conference in recent years, the success of the Hardin-Simmons and Mary Hardin-Baylor women’s basketball programs has been a constant. It’s a known fact that when the conference title race heats up in the month of February, the Crusaders and Cowgirls will be in the thick of the charge towards the top of the ASC standings.

So in the first meeting of the season between the two on Saturday afternoon, the stakes were indeed high. The intensity was evident. And on the road, inside the gym of the nation’s 18th-ranked team, UMHB’s tenacity won out. A pair of 3-pointers from Josie Bruder in the final 2:30 and several timely defensive stops lifted The Cru to its first Top 25 road win of the season, defeating HSU, 74-68.

“What a battle,” UMHB head coach Katie Novak-Lenoir said afterwards. “Our team stuck to the game plan and stayed tough for 40 minutes, even when HSU went on scoring runs.”

The Cru is now 14-6 overall, having secured back-to-back regular season road wins over HSU for the first time since 2018. UMHB is also 3-1 in the ASC, just one game behind first-place ETBU, who is 4-0. It extends The Cru’s win streak to three games—tied for their longest of the season—and is the fourth time this year in which they’ve picked up three consecutive victories.

“We stayed composed at the end, and made the hustle play or grabbed the board we needed to get the win,” Novak-Lenoir added. “I’m very proud of our hustle.”

With 3:41 left, HSU’s Kynnan Shields pulled down an offensive rebound on a missed layup and scored on a putback off the glass, extending the Cowgirls’ lead to 65-61. But that set the stage for the game’s decisive shift, as UMHB answered with a 9-2 run, going up 70-67 with 1:06 to play.

It started with Bruder finding Karlee Cronk in the paint, as Cronk received the bounce pass on the right side of the lane and put up a one-handed floater that bounced once on the rim before falling in. It cut the deficit to two, and on the ensuing possession, Bruder grabbed hold of a loose ball in the middle of the defense after Shields lost control of a pass from Jacqueline Berry.

Bruder quickly found Jaycie Brisco near the right sideline, making the pass from her knees as Brisco moved up the court. Left unguarded as HSU sprinted back into its defense, she took the ball back from Brisco at the top of the arc and promptly swished a 3-pointer, regaining the lead for UMHB, 66-65.

That momentum shift came with just over 3 minutes left, and HSU again turned the ball over on a bad pass after Bruder’s 3. Amillion Fowler, who played big minutes with Rachel Okoye on the bench after picking up her fourth foul, made a perfect cut on The Cru’s ensuing possession, laying the ball in for a 68-65 advantage. It was one of 17 assists on the day for The Cru, the fourth-most in a game this season.

Even after Dylan Koele scored for HSU, putting some wind back in the sails for the hosts, Bruder countered with one of her biggest shots of the day. Going up against Koele, she drove to her right, spun, and lofted an arcing shot with her right hand, pushing the lead back to 3.

That was the story of the fourth quarter for UMHB. In every instance that HSU made a play, The Cru seemed ready to respond, taking quality shots down the stretch and getting the most out of each possession. UMHB turned the ball over just twice in the final 10 minutes, with their last turnover coming at the 4:23 mark.

Koele’s jumper with 1:31 left ended up being HSU’s final field goal of the contest. UMHB’s defensive effort stepped forth on multiple possessions in the final 90 seconds, including with just under 40 seconds, when Okoye intercepted HSU’s inbounds pass from the baseline near the 3-point arc.

The Cowgirls, with just 14 seconds left on the shot clock, trailed 70-68, aiming to tie the score for the fifth time in the second half, or better yet, take the lead by utilizing the skill set of their sharp-shooting guards. Instead, Okoye came up with the takeaway, and HSU missed three consecutive 3s in the final 19 seconds. UMHB went 4-of-6 at the free throw line in the last 30 seconds, with a defensive rebound and two free throws from leading scorer Katelen Brooks sealing the victory.

UMHB shot above 50 percent from the field for the second straight game, doing so for the first time this season. That percentage was helped by an efficient second half from The Cru’s offense, who went 16-of-28 from the field over the final two quarters, including 7-of-11 (63.64%) in the fourth.

The ability to score inside, as Fowler and Bruder both did down the stretch, was a consistent source of offense all afternoon for The Cru. UMHB went just 3-of-14 from 3-point range, but made up for it with 40 points in the paint. Just as they did on Thursday night against Howard Payne, they attacked the interior of HSU’s defense, and sprinkled in 13 fast-break points as well, with a number of those transition plays ending in layups.

Conversely, HSU had just 18 paint points and struggled when their 3-point shooting went cold. After going 5-of-16 from long range in the first half, the Cowgirls were unable to find in-rhythm shots against UMHB’s defense in the second. HSU converted on just one 3-pointer in the third quarter—Aiken Semones pushed HSU in front, 52-49, with 2:11 left—and all six 3-point attempts in the fourth ended up off the mark.

UMHB led by as many as seven points in the third quarter, going up 49-42 on Adyson James’ layup at the 6:11 mark. Over the first four minutes of the second half, The Cru erased a 38-34 halftime deficit with a 15-4 run, controlling the pace on both ends of the floor. Sparked by a layup from James—who finished with an 11-point, 10-rebound double-double—UMHB grabbed the lead on a 3 from Bruder and scored the game’s next four points immediately afterwards, stretching the advantage to 45-40.

But as quick as The Cru got the seven-point lead, HSU erased it, scoring 10 unanswered points as the Cowgirls took a three-point lead. It marked the Cowgirls’ biggest run of the second half, though ironically, the third quarter was also HSU’s lowest-scoring quarter of the contest, with just 14 points. James and Fowler closed the third on a 4-0 run for UMHB, setting up the fourth quarter with the visitors from Belton leading 53-52.

That back-and-forth pattern was seen through much of the first half as well, highlighted by six lead changes over the first two quarters. While UMHB and HSU each tallied an identical number of made field goals in that span—13—and The Cru shot for a higher percentage (44.8% to HSU’s 38.2%), HSU was more effective from 3-point range. The Cowgirls’ five 3s, compared to just one for UMHB, provided the difference in the halftime score that saw HSU up by 4.

HSU closed the second quarter on an 8-2 run, with six of those points scored by Berry. The Texhoma, Oklahoma native finished with 24 points and 11 rebounds, game-highs in both categories. But in a testament to UMHB’s tighter second-half defense, Berry had just eight points over the final two quarters, after putting up 16 in the first half.

Having now beaten two Top 25 opponents this season—UMHB also beat then-No. 2 Wartburg 67-64 on Dec. 17—Novak-Lenoir’s squad heads into its final non-conference tilt of the season, hosting UT-Dallas on Feb. 6. UTD is 14-6 and in the midst of a five-game win streak, with a 5-1 record against ASC opponents.

The Cru plays just once next week before resuming ASC play at LeTourneau on Feb. 13.